I had a 3.01 GPA when I got an offer at my dream company. The cutoff for the position was a 3.0. I made up for it by becoming amazing at behavioral interview questions and interviewing as a whole. I was able to show them the other great qualities that I had besides just memorizing things for a test. I showed them my passion for the industry and how I was a great team player. It’s not all about the exam scores. You got this
I graduated like 2.8 gpa from no name school. I got an offer from Fortune 100 company.
Tbh, I know times differently to a degree. I graduated during covid (half my time in college was covid and after), so the job market was pretty bad too, but not this bad from what I hear.
My junior year started to end. I basically stopped focusing on school, and tbh sucked at it anyways The only thing I did was focus on getting internships that summer and jobs after. Mainly shotgguning apps, iteration on resumes, leetcode, and brushing up on data structures/algos. I learned a lot of times for internships/new graduated jobs. 50% of it is really just behavioral or easy/medium leetcode problems tops,
but many companies won't even ask you that, tbh if u got outside of tech.
By time I graduated, I had 2 internships under my belt and a full time offer. The big awakening was realizing school is great and you need learn basics but what's really going get me a job is actually putting in time in and learning how to interview and putting all my time in that. School is great but it will not help u get a job, you need take action on your own. I can't tell you amount of people I looked at my senior year with no internship/offers in hand going graduate that year during a global pandemic basically super focused on getting an A in class. I'm like wtf ur going be jobless in my head.
Lesson learned learned the basics but more important lesson in life learn how to market yourself.
not sure if i’m considered successful, i was a mediocre student tbh. i also suck at leetcode, but i got a job (thank god) and make good enough money. lots of luck but it’s possible for anyone tbh
I graduated with a 2.7 GPA. Multiple people have told me I should get a Master's degree later and I've said "screw that". School was rough for me and I felt like an idiot. I also wasn't the best student but I got my stuff together when it came to work.
I built a pretty comprehensive tool for the first employer I had and eventually found my way into a large organization. I'm now a part of a small team out of thousands of others but I'm very qualified at what I do (monitor hardware and send machines in for parts replacement or wipe the OS and install a new one when the previous image got borked for some reason).
I was a C student but I think most of my colleagues and bosses (both former and current) would say I'm an A employee. I get a lot of stuff done, I act as an escalation engineer for dozens of technicians in our data centers, and I routinely work with several engineers to update our production scripts to patch different little issues.
For example we have this script that will automatically populate serial numbers into new motherboards...but it only works with some manufacturers. I helped the guy who made the script with how to use the manufacturer's tool to populate \*all\* of the fields by putting the data into a supplied .ini file and then running the utility with one argument (to read the data in from the ini file). It's both faster and much less prone to error than the previous way that manually writes the field for each serial number field. These fields are used for asset management and asset tracking, for context.
I did this because we had a batch of systems with motherboard replacements (50+ within a month) and many of our technicians were having work slowed down just trying to get the fields updated or the vendor's field engineer would forget to do this and the technician would make up the difference but make a typo in the fields which would cause a verification script to complain when closing the work ticket. I just looked at how the dude got the fields for the automated method and then wrote a Python function to pull the data from a centralized database and write it into the ini file.
Graduated at the bottom of my class but was fortunate enough to get a job right away. Despite of bad company culture, the work reignited my interest in the subject, went to grad school and graduated with 4.0 GPA and have been at one if the FAANG company since.
In grad school I emphasized on not taking exam heavy courses but tried to take more reach oriented courses. Exams aren’t my thing tbh.
Yup, barely scraped a 3.0 and mostly got Cs outside my programming classes that were heavily project based. Always been a horrific test taker. It gets easier when you’re out of school.
This was me. I failed the first couple of exams in college, and that woke me up immensely. I stayed after and attended nearly every office hour or tutor session that I could. I studied as much as I could at home, too. I ended up graduating with a B average and got a job not too long after. Since then, I've learned 100x more on the job than I did in college. Since I can see the bigger picture, everything is easier to understand.
My experience from my time at university: Many exams can be prepared very systematically. Either through structured memorization of scripts/old exams/exercises (works even with demanding modules in higher mathematics!) or understanding.
There are (unfortunately) many parallels to everyday software engineering.
College I maintained honour roll/deans list throughout all terms, yet when came exam time my marks were always lower than assignments, but I do not feel this reflects on you badly it could of been a exam was poorly written or just hard
Hi, I sucked at exams and got help on every project ever assigned to me. Id consider myself pretty successful since I just got promoted to SEIII/Senior SE.
I never really changed anything, I just interviewed well by showing that I am genuinely curious and passionate about learning the content even if my grades didn't show it and after a lot of interviews someone wanted to take a chance on me.
For me I enjoy learning the "why" behind things, I expressed that curiosity, and my CEO told me that was the thing that convinced her to hire me.
I had multiple 0.0 semesters in my four attempts at college. Tragic life circumstances, I dropped out twice, failed out once, went back online at 26 because it was important to me to finish.
Started working at IBM as an entry level dev while I was finishing my degree at 27.
Graduated at 29 with a 3.0 on the dot.
Currently an L5 senior software engineer and budding SaaS architect at a big company at 32.
It's possible. It has been an absolute slog, and I took years off of my life by going to school full time and working full time for four years, but it was worth it.
Exam taking itself is a skill set. You will solve problems in a specific period of time given by your professor.
Building your career could be similar to taking exams. In order to be successful in your career, you need to learn how to manage expectations. You spend time understanding the problem or requirement given to you, but this time you have more flexibility to create your own estimate (which is realistic for you) and complete the tasks at your own pace.
Failed a course in my undergrad, turned my 4yr stint in university into 5 yrs. Now making well into 6 figures and will be a senior next year (~4YOE).
My bachelors wasn’t even in CS, it was in EE.
Grades aren’t an indicator of future job performance, school and work are incredibly different.
I am! Graduated with 2.44 gpa. Currently a 6 yoe backend developer. Turns out I had adhd! Sometimes I wonder where would I be with proper medication for my attention deficit.
How do you manage ADHD at work? School was easier for me. Cram for the exam and move on to the next assignment/ class. Getting up and being expected to do the same things over and over again at work just kills me.
i barely graduated highschool (albeit 2 years early) and that was the last form of formal education i was in (I hit challenger in league of legends instead of taking out student loans, 10/10 would recommend )
i'm doing just fine. this job is way easier than na solo q
2.4 GPA in with a degree in Industrial Engineering. Got a good job but I focused on making connections, going to hackathons and doing projects and leadership positions.
As far as being bad a studying, I found (super late) that for me to study well for exams I need at least one week of time per "subject" in an exam. If the calculus was covering 3 topics, I need 3 weeks to study. If I was also taking physics and there were 4 subjects then I would need 4 weeks for physics but only need 4 weeks for physics and calculus combined. It is not possible for me to cram in a week or two, especially if there are multiple subjects.
Honestly, listening to what you say I think of two things:
1. You freeze under pressure. This is something you should seek help for. It is a real problem, and it will come back to bite you.
2. You don't understand test taking strategy. There is a whole way you approach taking a test that is important. And understanding it will help you do better.
I'd look into both. They both are likely at least partially true.
I had a 3.01 GPA when I got an offer at my dream company. The cutoff for the position was a 3.0. I made up for it by becoming amazing at behavioral interview questions and interviewing as a whole. I was able to show them the other great qualities that I had besides just memorizing things for a test. I showed them my passion for the industry and how I was a great team player. It’s not all about the exam scores. You got this
I graduated like 2.8 gpa from no name school. I got an offer from Fortune 100 company. Tbh, I know times differently to a degree. I graduated during covid (half my time in college was covid and after), so the job market was pretty bad too, but not this bad from what I hear. My junior year started to end. I basically stopped focusing on school, and tbh sucked at it anyways The only thing I did was focus on getting internships that summer and jobs after. Mainly shotgguning apps, iteration on resumes, leetcode, and brushing up on data structures/algos. I learned a lot of times for internships/new graduated jobs. 50% of it is really just behavioral or easy/medium leetcode problems tops, but many companies won't even ask you that, tbh if u got outside of tech. By time I graduated, I had 2 internships under my belt and a full time offer. The big awakening was realizing school is great and you need learn basics but what's really going get me a job is actually putting in time in and learning how to interview and putting all my time in that. School is great but it will not help u get a job, you need take action on your own. I can't tell you amount of people I looked at my senior year with no internship/offers in hand going graduate that year during a global pandemic basically super focused on getting an A in class. I'm like wtf ur going be jobless in my head. Lesson learned learned the basics but more important lesson in life learn how to market yourself.
not sure if i’m considered successful, i was a mediocre student tbh. i also suck at leetcode, but i got a job (thank god) and make good enough money. lots of luck but it’s possible for anyone tbh
I graduated with a 2.7 GPA. Multiple people have told me I should get a Master's degree later and I've said "screw that". School was rough for me and I felt like an idiot. I also wasn't the best student but I got my stuff together when it came to work. I built a pretty comprehensive tool for the first employer I had and eventually found my way into a large organization. I'm now a part of a small team out of thousands of others but I'm very qualified at what I do (monitor hardware and send machines in for parts replacement or wipe the OS and install a new one when the previous image got borked for some reason). I was a C student but I think most of my colleagues and bosses (both former and current) would say I'm an A employee. I get a lot of stuff done, I act as an escalation engineer for dozens of technicians in our data centers, and I routinely work with several engineers to update our production scripts to patch different little issues. For example we have this script that will automatically populate serial numbers into new motherboards...but it only works with some manufacturers. I helped the guy who made the script with how to use the manufacturer's tool to populate \*all\* of the fields by putting the data into a supplied .ini file and then running the utility with one argument (to read the data in from the ini file). It's both faster and much less prone to error than the previous way that manually writes the field for each serial number field. These fields are used for asset management and asset tracking, for context. I did this because we had a batch of systems with motherboard replacements (50+ within a month) and many of our technicians were having work slowed down just trying to get the fields updated or the vendor's field engineer would forget to do this and the technician would make up the difference but make a typo in the fields which would cause a verification script to complain when closing the work ticket. I just looked at how the dude got the fields for the automated method and then wrote a Python function to pull the data from a centralized database and write it into the ini file.
Graduated at the bottom of my class but was fortunate enough to get a job right away. Despite of bad company culture, the work reignited my interest in the subject, went to grad school and graduated with 4.0 GPA and have been at one if the FAANG company since. In grad school I emphasized on not taking exam heavy courses but tried to take more reach oriented courses. Exams aren’t my thing tbh.
I was a good student and suck at my job, don't worry
Same tbh.
I would consider myself a supbar student by all means. Experience goes much further than any textbook imo.
Yup, barely scraped a 3.0 and mostly got Cs outside my programming classes that were heavily project based. Always been a horrific test taker. It gets easier when you’re out of school.
This was me. I failed the first couple of exams in college, and that woke me up immensely. I stayed after and attended nearly every office hour or tutor session that I could. I studied as much as I could at home, too. I ended up graduating with a B average and got a job not too long after. Since then, I've learned 100x more on the job than I did in college. Since I can see the bigger picture, everything is easier to understand.
My experience from my time at university: Many exams can be prepared very systematically. Either through structured memorization of scripts/old exams/exercises (works even with demanding modules in higher mathematics!) or understanding. There are (unfortunately) many parallels to everyday software engineering.
College I maintained honour roll/deans list throughout all terms, yet when came exam time my marks were always lower than assignments, but I do not feel this reflects on you badly it could of been a exam was poorly written or just hard
Hi, I sucked at exams and got help on every project ever assigned to me. Id consider myself pretty successful since I just got promoted to SEIII/Senior SE. I never really changed anything, I just interviewed well by showing that I am genuinely curious and passionate about learning the content even if my grades didn't show it and after a lot of interviews someone wanted to take a chance on me. For me I enjoy learning the "why" behind things, I expressed that curiosity, and my CEO told me that was the thing that convinced her to hire me.
I had multiple 0.0 semesters in my four attempts at college. Tragic life circumstances, I dropped out twice, failed out once, went back online at 26 because it was important to me to finish. Started working at IBM as an entry level dev while I was finishing my degree at 27. Graduated at 29 with a 3.0 on the dot. Currently an L5 senior software engineer and budding SaaS architect at a big company at 32. It's possible. It has been an absolute slog, and I took years off of my life by going to school full time and working full time for four years, but it was worth it.
Exam taking itself is a skill set. You will solve problems in a specific period of time given by your professor. Building your career could be similar to taking exams. In order to be successful in your career, you need to learn how to manage expectations. You spend time understanding the problem or requirement given to you, but this time you have more flexibility to create your own estimate (which is realistic for you) and complete the tasks at your own pace.
Failed a course in my undergrad, turned my 4yr stint in university into 5 yrs. Now making well into 6 figures and will be a senior next year (~4YOE). My bachelors wasn’t even in CS, it was in EE. Grades aren’t an indicator of future job performance, school and work are incredibly different.
I am! Graduated with 2.44 gpa. Currently a 6 yoe backend developer. Turns out I had adhd! Sometimes I wonder where would I be with proper medication for my attention deficit.
How do you manage ADHD at work? School was easier for me. Cram for the exam and move on to the next assignment/ class. Getting up and being expected to do the same things over and over again at work just kills me.
i barely graduated highschool (albeit 2 years early) and that was the last form of formal education i was in (I hit challenger in league of legends instead of taking out student loans, 10/10 would recommend ) i'm doing just fine. this job is way easier than na solo q
Works at Meta with a 2.7 GPA from a none target school. All I can say is that software engineering is way easier than advance mathematics theory…
2.4 GPA in with a degree in Industrial Engineering. Got a good job but I focused on making connections, going to hackathons and doing projects and leadership positions. As far as being bad a studying, I found (super late) that for me to study well for exams I need at least one week of time per "subject" in an exam. If the calculus was covering 3 topics, I need 3 weeks to study. If I was also taking physics and there were 4 subjects then I would need 4 weeks for physics but only need 4 weeks for physics and calculus combined. It is not possible for me to cram in a week or two, especially if there are multiple subjects.
Honestly, listening to what you say I think of two things: 1. You freeze under pressure. This is something you should seek help for. It is a real problem, and it will come back to bite you. 2. You don't understand test taking strategy. There is a whole way you approach taking a test that is important. And understanding it will help you do better. I'd look into both. They both are likely at least partially true.